MARCH 27, 2005 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
It’s has been a hard time for heroes lately. It seems that they always let us down, prove to have feet of clay, are revealed to be so painfully…human. From businessman Kenneth Lay of the Enron scandal, to t.v. personality and now ex-con Martha Stewart, to those hear-see-and-speak-no-steroids sports figures like Mark McGwire, it’s tough to find someone to honor who is “without blemish.”
Part of the problem might be what Dr. Laurence J. Peter calls the Peter Principle: The theory that people will be advanced beyond their competency to a level at which they will fail. When we elevate our worldly heroes to such stratospheric heights, maybe they can’t do anything BUT fail… certainly there’s no place for them to go but down.
Some have even argued that this is what happened to Jesus – that he, too, fell victim to the Peter Principle, that his popularity grew so out of control that it got him advanced to the point of failure. Well, no one can deny that it got him elevated and raised up…and that it left him to die on the cross.
But the truth is that today’s Easter drama is not about the Peter Principle… it’s about the Gospel principle. And that is a far more gracious story to tell. Here Jesus proves to be a true hero, honest as the day is long, as good as gold, solid as a rock, faithful ’til the end, obedient unto death, forgiving of his enemies and giver of hope to all who are hopeless. And the star of our drama is actually an anti-hero, a delightfully ordinary, absolutely real, completely sinful-like-us, Mary Magdalene.
Far from being elevated to incompetence, she is brought down to be a blessing, grounded to grasp God’s grace, humbled to hold fast to this holy hand of hope. Our Gospel “anti-hero” not only has feet of clay, but a body, mind and spirit of clay…just like us. On that cold, gray morning, empty of tears and weary to the bone, Mary makes her way to Jesus’ tomb. With her Lord killed, she is spirit-less, life-less, dead to the world, in the same way that we, too, die a little at the death of a loved one.
Mary personifies that walk we all have to make through the valley of the shadow of death. Her world has come to an end, and on top of everything else, now she’s even been denied the final terrible blessing of preparing Jesus’ body for burial. Where have they taken him? she demands of the “gardener.” And again, Why won’t they leave him alone? Mary is empty. Her hope was nailed to the cross. Her faith buried in the tomb. Her love drained from her heart as Jesus’ life was drained in death.
And then, suddenly, Mary finds herself standing…in the twilight zone. It’s a little thing that happens…but it turns her world upside down in a huge way. She hears someone say her name – no big deal ordinarily, she’s heard it countless times before. But this time, it’s spoken by that voice, by his voice.
You all know the sound – it belongs to Mom or Dad, husband or wife, child, sibling, lover, friend – it’s the one voice you’d know anytime, anywhere. In fact, since their death you could’ve sworn that you’ve heard it in the mall or the grocery store, at a concert or sporting event, walking through a restaurant or an airport.
A woman I know tells of receiving a phone call from her brother-in-law a short time after her husband’s death. It was a call from the brother who always sounded so much like her husband. She said, When he first spoke my name in that voice, I just about dropped the phone.
What tricks our minds can play on us, the voices we hear…and the people we see. Last Thanksgiving my family and I were visiting our dear friends Pat and Vicki Michel in Tacoma. Vicki’s dad, Roy, who was very sick with cancer, died the night after we’d all visited to say goodbye, share the Lord’s Supper, sing a few songs and share some prayers.
The next day, while we ran some errands, Vicki’s family gathered at her mom’s place to move Roy’s hospital bed out of the living room, put up the Christmas lights, and just take some time to mourn and heal. When the Fuller family finished its errands, we stopped by to see how they were doing.
Entering the house I was at the back, screened by my family in front. The only thing that could be seen of me, apparently, was my bald head, a trait that I shared with our friend’s dad who had just died. When Vicki saw my chrome dome back there shining in the morning sun, the breath caught in her throat. She said, Oh my goodness, for a second there I thought it was my dad walking in the room!
But for Mary…it was real, really him. He who once was dead, is alive. He, whom everyone thought had lost, has won. He, whom people were certain had been abandoned, is now out there everywhere constantly seeking you and me and everyone to reveal God’s gracious gift of forgiveness and love.
The world will continue to assert that Jesus is the ultimate example of the Peter Principle…that his incompetence as a Messiah elevated him to failure on the cross. But God has shown that there is a much more powerful force at work, the Gospel principle. Here Jesus was put to death that you and I might know life. He was buried that we might be released from the grave. He was humiliated that we might be forgiven. He was hated that all people might know God’s love never-ending love.
Let’s join again in that ancient Easter greeting. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen.